# Was the Soviet Union good in some aspects? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 25, 2005, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244 "2005-03-25T19:48:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/41 "2005-03-26T02:01:26Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > The problem is the Soviet Union abandoned Marxism early on. You could make a case for that . . . but there are so many different interpretations of Marx that by the end of his life he declared in exasperation, _“Je ne pas un Marxiste!”_ The real problem is that he never fleshed out in detail how a communist society would work, so who can really say the CPSU wasn’t following his model? ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/42 "2005-03-26T02:10:21Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You could make a case for that . . . but there are so many different interpretations of Marx that by the end of his life he declared in exasperation, _“Je ne pas un Marxiste!”_ The real problem is that he never fleshed out in detail how a communist society would work, so who can really say the CPSU wasn’t following his model? Indeed. The biggest flaw in the Communist Manifesto is it was all theoretical. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/43 "2005-03-26T02:12:01Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > Ok weighing the experience of life before Soviet Russia to Tsarist Russia, which is better politically, economically and socially? Well, a lot of horrible shit went on under Stalin. But in economic terms – from Khruschev on, the average Soviet citizen (so long as he or she stayed out of trouble and made no waves) probably ate better, was clothed better, had better job security, was better educated, and got better health care than the average subject of the Tsar – and better than a lot of Russians now. (In 1992 a joke was making the rounds in Russia: “What have two years of capitalism accomplished that 70 years of Communism failed to achieve?” “Making Communism look good!”) As for “politically” and “socially” – a lot of people would say a measure of personal freedom is an indispensable element of those, and the Russians probably had more personal freedom under the Tsarist regime (a despotism tempered by incompetence), and have more freedom now (at least, freedom from the arbitrary but rather ineffectual government; freedom from gangsters is another story). ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/44 "2005-03-26T02:29:07Z")
> [@AdmiralCrunch](#): > > [hijack] > > I’m no military scholar, but I’m pretty sure the US would have nuked the holy hell out of the Third Reich had the war gone on long enough, regardless of their success with the Soviets. > [/hijack] Not really. The Third Reich was a whisker away from having atomic weapons. In fact the most likely scenario under which it could have won the war, is one where it pipped the Manhattan Project to that goal. Correspondingly, the Manhattan Project benefitted from the collapse of Nazi Germany and the flow of German science to the United States. Whereas in reality the USSR didn’t have atomic weapons until c.1950. In fact one might say one benefit of the USSR is that it was effective at limiting US imperialism. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/45 "2005-03-26T02:41:59Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > Whereas in reality the USSR didn’t have atomic weapons until c.1950. In fact one might say one benefit of the USSR is that it was effective at limiting US imperialism. Indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/46 "2005-03-26T02:58:50Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 😕 “SIL”? Sister in law. > [@](#): > > USSR is that it was effective at limiting US imperialism. Because the alternative was so attractive no? ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/47 "2005-03-26T03:02:45Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > Because the alternative was so attractive no? The good thing is neither side got their evil way. ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/48 "2005-03-26T03:03:41Z")
:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/49 "2005-03-26T03:11:51Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > Not really. The Third Reich was a whisker away from having atomic weapons. In fact the most likely scenario under which it could have won the war, is one where it pipped the Manhattan Project to that goal. > > Correspondingly, the Manhattan Project benefitted from the collapse of Nazi Germany and the flow of German science to the United States. > > Whereas in reality the USSR didn’t have atomic weapons until c.1950. In fact one might say one benefit of the USSR is that it was effective at limiting US imperialism. You realize of course that the United States was the only country on the planet that nuclear weapons for five years, and yet those imperialist bastards never overthrew a single country. The United States has never been imperialistic. After WWII, the U.S. strode the world like a collossus. It was a super-bomb. Its soldiers were all over the world, occupying numerous countries. There was no other country that could even approach the level of industrial production, military production, or current military might. And yet, what did this evil imperialist country do? It dismantled its armed forces and went home. It dismantled so much of of its military that a scant five years later it had a hard time fielding troops for Korea. Imperialist my ass. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/50 "2005-03-26T03:12:57Z")
“It was a super-bomb”? It HAD a super bomb. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/51 "2005-03-26T03:21:26Z")
I can’t think of too may good things to say about the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks did make some economic improvements for the average citizen. But they didn’t create anything new; they essentially just eliminated a lot of previous property owners and redistributed their property to the surviving people. Their actual creation of new wealth was relatively meagre. Internationally, the Soviet Union’s legacy was mostly disruptive. The Soviet Union handed power to Josef Stalin, who then used this power to kill millions of people. On the plus side: the Soviet Union did have a very good educational system. And it does deserve credit for defeating Nazi Germany. But who’s to say that if the Soviets hadn’t been ruling in 1941, that the Russian Empire (or Russian Republic) wouldn’t have done the same? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/52 "2005-03-26T03:26:29Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > Correspondingly, the Manhattan Project benefitted from the collapse of Nazi Germany and the flow of German science to the United States. [tom lehrer] "Vunce the rockets are up, who cares vhere dey come down? “Dat’s not my department!” Say Wehrner von Braun! [/tom lehrer] 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/53 "2005-03-26T03:32:00Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > The United States has never been imperialistic. Thank you, **Sam!** After the Canschluss, I’ll recommend you as an internment-camp trusty! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/54 "2005-03-26T03:35:17Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > The Bolsheviks did make some economic improvements for the average citizen. But they didn’t create anything new; they essentially just eliminated a lot of previous property owners and redistributed their property to the surviving people. Their actual creation of new wealth was relatively meagre. That’s completely untrue, **Nemo.** See post #29. In fact, after WWI and the Civil War, there wasn’t all that much wealth for the Bolsheviks to redistribute. They pretty much had to rebuild Russia’s economy from the ground up. (Of course, as the Commies would be the first to admit, it was the **people** who did all the work.) ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/55 "2005-03-26T03:47:22Z")
I have to agree, there wasn’t 14 million people in the Gulag for nothing, you know. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/56 "2005-03-26T03:56:33Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > I have to agree, there wasn’t 14 million people in the Gulag for nothing, you know. Come on now, I don’t think very much of the USSR’s economic capacity was attributable to slave labor. Under industrial conditions, slave labor is usually pitifully inefficient, especially when you factor in the cost of penning and guarding and overseeing the slaves. (One of many reasons the Germans lost WWII.) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/57 "2005-03-26T04:14:47Z")
From [Country-Studies.com](http://www.country-studies.com/russia/the-economy---historical-background.html): > [@](#): > > In 1920 agricultural output had attained only half of its pre-World War I level, foreign trade had virtually ceased, and industrial production had fallen to only a small fraction of its prewar levels. Beginning in 1921, Lenin led a tactical retreat from state control of the economy in an effort to reignite production. His new program, called the New Economic Policy (Novaya ekonomicheskaya politika–NEP; see Glossary), permitted some private activity, especially in agriculture, light industry, and services (see Lenin’s Leadership, ch. 2). However, heavy industry, transportation, foreign trade, and banking remained under state control. > > Lenin died in 1924, and by 1927 the government had nearly abandoned the NEP. Stalin sought a rapid transformation from an agricultural, peasant-based country into a modern industrial power and initiated the country’s First Five-Year Plan (1928-32). Under the plan, the Soviet government began the nationwide collectivization of agriculture to ensure production and distribution of food supplies to the growing industrial sector and to free labor for industry (see Industrialization and Collectivization, ch. 2). By the end of the five-year period, however, agricultural output had declined by 23 percent, according to official statistics. The chemical, textile, housing, and consumer goods and services industries were also performing poorly. Heavy industry exceeded the plan targets, but only at a great cost to the rest of the economy. The Soviet Union had only one period of reasonable growth between 1950 and 1970. But it was starting from such a pathetic point due to wars and the mismanagement of resources under Communism, that such growth wasn’t surprising. But then the economy stalled out again, and in the 1970’s to 1990’s the Soviet economy underperformed the rest of the world’s by a large margin. I have a hard time seeing how anyone can argue that Communism was good for the Soviet economy, when that economy declined drastically under the communists for years and remained a basket case until the fall of the Soviet Union. A better question would be, “how much better would the Soviet economy had been if the NEP reforms under Lenin had evolved into an actual capitalist economy?” Does anyone doubt that it would have been much, much better? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/58 "2005-03-26T04:21:45Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > A better question would be, “how much better would the Soviet economy had been if the NEP reforms under Lenin had evolved into an actual capitalist economy?” Or maybe if the NEP reforms under Lenin had evolved into an actual democratic-socialist economy? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/59 "2005-03-26T04:25:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Come on now, I don’t think very much of the USSR’s economic capacity was attributable to slave labor. Under industrial conditions, slave labor is usually pitifully inefficient, especially when you factor in the cost of penning and guarding and overseeing the slaves. (One of many reasons the Germans lost WWII.) Yes, but it is also cheap, and the Soviets used it extensively so they didn’t have to buy money on foreign equipment. ---
**Author:** ![AdmiralCrunch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6f9a4e/32.png) [@AdmiralCrunch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AdmiralCrunch)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2005, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244/60 "2005-03-26T04:28:25Z")
I really hate to hijack this further, but the statements > [@](#): > > **Sevastapol** : > Not really. The Third Reich was a whisker away from having atomic weapons. > … > Correspondingly, the Manhattan Project benefitted from the collapse of Nazi Germany and the flow of German science to the United States. aren’t true. Hitler abandoned the atomic bomb because he thought it wouldn’t be done by the war’s end. We also had the same guys working on the bomb up to its completion. Von Braun and others were useful after we were already atomic. In fact, Germany’s nuclear engineers hadn’t even made a reactor by the time they were sitting in an Allied prison. They were years away at best.[Cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nuclear_energy_project) Back to the OP, the USSR probably caused the “evil” and “imperialism” from the US. We probably wouldn’t have touched Vietnam or meddled in Latin America without the threat of the Cold War. Social conservatives would have been less popular. Desegregation likely would have been sped up and no “Under God” in the pledge. As for good things, the Soviets had plenty of great Olympic Athletes, and made Bond movies fun. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-soviet-union-good-in-some-aspects/296244.md?page=4)